"Come on, dad! We're nearly there!" Sunny said.

"OK, Sunny, it's fine!" Argyle laughed. "It's still going to be there no matter how quickly we walk!"

It was a nice afternoon in Truro, and Sunny and Argyle had made the journey up from Falmouth to engage in one of their hobbies.

Roller blading.

Argyle had grown up right when the roller blading craze was taking off in the UK, and as such had gotten very acquainted to travelling around on a pair of roller blades. They were quiet, clean, and didn't take up a huge amount of space, making travelling about quite easy.

Not to mention having his own set of wheels granted him an impressive level of freedom to travel about. True, he didn't have space in them to move big things (handy thing the USAF had supplied his dad with a car), but it was what they symbolised that mattered most.

Argyle had tried to introduce Goldie to the wonderful world of roller blading, but she'd been less than enthusiastic on that front. Ah well. At least Sunny had taken to it like a duck to water.

Though teaching Sunny the tricks of roller blading hadn't been easy (there had been an awful lot of bruises back in the early days, hence why Argyle's first major purchase on the roller blading front for his child apart from the roller blades themselves was a set of knee defenders and shin guards, not to mention elbow guards and a helmet), she had eventually gotten the hang of it. Proof that if you put your mind to something and put the work in, you can achieve it.

Sure enough, they arrived at the large building which Sunny had alluded to. This was the brand new Truro Roller Rink, built to serve the recent resurgance in interest in roller blading. A huge floor, plenty of speakers, a music system, and a full cafeteria which switched its theme depending on the month. This time around they were set up as a pizzaria. Argyle wondered to himself if the pizza was a part of the popularity. Truth be told he liked it as well, but it wasn't something he made very often as he preferred to cook from scratch and the ingredients couldn't easily be sourced.

They stepped inside and Argyle went up to the desk. "Albert Starshine. I emailed you earlier this week?"

"Got your membership right here. And Sarah, right?"

"Correct. That's my daughter."

Sunny pouted at being called her birth name, but a quick glance from Argyle caused her to switch back to her usual cheerful mode.

The desk officer handed Argyle a key. "Excellent. Have fun!"

Argyle nodded, and headed for the bench where the potential rollers were sitting. He took his shoes off and put them in a locker number which corresponded with the key he'd been given, then popped Sunny's in on top of his. It didn't really matter if his shoes got scuffed. He wore an old pair to these sorts of things for that reason.

He slipped his roller blades on and did up the straps, before helping Sunny with hers. Both of them then rolled over to the rink and with a bit of wobbling climbed into the rink itself, with the grip rail at the side being quite the aid.

"You ready, Sunny Bunny?" Argyle asked.

"You bet!" Sunny replied. "Race you there!" She then shot off at speed.

Argyle laughed. "Oh, we'll see who the slowpoke is!"

After about two hours on the rink floor, rolling about at speed and generally just having fun, Argyle and his daugher retreated to the cafeteria. Truth be told, this was something they loved doing, as it gave them a chance to bond. Not that Argyle and Sunny weren't close, but things like this helped their bond stay firm.

Whilst Sunny watched a band consisting of animatronic animals performing a rather strange rendition of Good Vibrations, Argyle placed an order for a pizza. This arrived a few minutes later.

"Sunny, food's here!" he called.

Sunny dashed over, and looked in surprise at what was on the table. "A pizza?" she asked. "I'm not complaining, it's just not very often we have pizza."

Argyle smiled. "Well, you did well on that test so I figured you deserved a treat." He popped open the box, and looked in surprise. "Oh. This is rather bigger than I'd expected." There was more than he and Sunny could realistically eat, and he hated wasting perfectly edible food.

"I can help!" said a voice, and a woman skated to a stop in front of the table. This woman had light blue skin and orange eyes, and once she removed her helmet a spectacular mane of yellow and orange hair seemed to poof into existance. She grinned when she saw who was seated there. "Hey! Monty! Fancy finding you here!"

Argyle looked in amazement. "Tracy!" he said. "Fancy seeing you here!"

"Well, St. Austell isn't too far from here by train, so I figured I'd dust the old skates off and give it another whirl," Tracy said, and took a seat next to them. "So, who's the girl?"

"This is Sunny, my daughter," Argyle said.

Tracy looked over at Argyle, noticing the wedding ring on his hand. "You got married?" she asked.

"Yeah, about a decade ago," Argyle replied. "Sunny was born a few years after that."

Tracy smiled. "Lovely to meet you, Sunny!" she glanced around. "I'm Tracy Tailspin, I was friends with your dad when we were teenagers."

"We used to do a fair bit of roller blading back in the day," Argyle said.

"A fair bit?!" Tracy said. "We were practically the dominating team back in the day! Little got in the way of the Hunslet Hammerheads! Remember our win against the Thornaby Titans and the Carlisle Commodores? That was front page news! Our little suburb had outperformed the bigger teams!"

Argyle nodded. "Yeah, those were fun times." He sighed. "Of course, I chose to hang my skates up and pursue another path, whilst Tracy decided to do roller derby as a sports career."

"I'm currently taking a break from all that," Tracy said. "Don't think raising a family is for me, though. I might make a return to the field someday, though."

Argyle, however, was deep in thought. He was wondering something to himself. What would have happened had he chosen to do roller derby professionally?

That would probably have ruled out a university degree- he'd have needed to focus his full time on honing his skills to compete with the bigger teams, and this would probably have ruled out overseas trips.

That would have meant no trip to Dresden to photograph Kriegsloks. No chance meeting with Goldie. And probably no Sunny.

He glanced over at his daughter, who seemed to be listening in awe to Tracy's story. The thought of Sunny not existing was one he preferred not to consider, and as such blanked it out of his mind. He sighed. His life might not have gone in the direction he expected, but he still found it a fulfilling life nontheless.

"Yo, Earth to Argyle!"

Argyle shook himself and saw Tracy waving in his face. "Yes?"

"You totally spaced out there! Your pizza's gonna get cold!"

Argyle looked down and grabbed a slice. "Sorry. Just thinking."

Tracy laughed. "You always were the thinker amongst us. Seriously, the amount of strategising he did was incredible! It's why we used to nickname him Monty."

"After who?" Sunny asked.

"The WW2 General?" Argyle said. "What are they teaching in history class these days?"

"We've only got as far as the 1930s."

"Oh, my mistake." Argyle looked back to Tracy. "You don't resent me leaving, do you?"

Tracy snorted, then took a sip of her drink. "Not at all! Our lives were pulling in different directions anyway." She grinned. "But how about, once we're done here, we tear it up on the rink just like old times?"

Argyle smiled. "I'd like that very much!"

Once they were done with food and drink, they headed back down to the rink at speed before launching into it.

Tracy sped through the middle of Sunny and Argyle at speed. "Hammerhead, on a run!"

"Not so fast!" Argyle shouted.

"Is that your catchphrase now?" Tracy teased, before speeding off.

Argyle shook his head. "She was always much better at the trash talk than me." He thundered forward to try and keep up, but Tracy was well ahead. Suddenly, she started to slow down.

Argyle recognised the move, and adjusted his boot to compensate. As she dropped past him, he turned to the left whilst she also turned left before grabbing onto each other's arms and rotating at speed.

They then released and shot off in different directions.

"That trick always confused them!" Argyle said.

As the trio hammered around the course, Argyle had a chance to reflect. Although his past was firmly that, and much of life had skated by, there was no harm in revisiting the past every now and then.

Author's Note

This is an original story loosely inspired by the Kenbucky Derby G5 comics (which I adapted in Tales from the Mainland Volume 4). I found the idea of Argyle and Tracy being old friends one that was narratively too good to pass up.

Rollerblading culture in the UK took off in the 1980s, and became a popular fixture of the era, with rollerdiscos being a popular pastime amongst teens. Whilst roller derby was never a big sport in the UK, it had its fans. Today it is mainly associated with roller rinks, although Starlight Express recently enjoyed a revival.

The animatronic band Sunny is watching are are based on the Rockafire Explosion, the house band of the Showbiz Pizza chain of restaurants which operated from 1979 to 1994. The band played cover versions of popular songs and the members were parodies of real musicians; Fats Geronimo, for example, was modelled on pianist Fats Domino. Showbiz later merged with Chuck E. Cheese, and the animatronics were converted to Chuck E. Cheese characters. This era of restaurant would later form the inspiration for the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise. The band is performing a cover of Good Vibrations, a 1966 song by The Beach Boys fondly remembered for his it subverted pop music conventions and its complex soundscape.

Tracy Tailspin is a character originally introduced in the Kenbucky Roller Derby comics, a veteran skater who is encouraged by Sunny to come out of retirement.

Monty is the common nickname for Bernard Law Montgomery, a British General of the Second World War best remembered for commanding the British Eighth Army (AKA the Desert Rats). He is a household name in the UK, and has rougly the same reputation that Patton does in the United States.